“Oh My Friend” which has Siddharth and Shruthi Hassan playing important roles touches upon a very sensitive subject which drives home the point that a guy and a girl can be good friends and not necessarily lovers. The film though lackluster in its screenplay drives home the above subject with conviction. In fact the first half is so predictable and scenes that are unnecessarily repetitive makes the viewers think that the two are more than just friends.

Chandu (Siddharth) and Siri (Shruthi Hassan) are very close pals from early childhood till date. They have their respective love interest in Ritu (Hansika Motwani) and Uday (Navdeep). Chandu is a budding guitarist while Siri is a dance teacher.

Things go haywire in the lives of Chandu and Siri when they along with Ritu and Uday travel to Kerala to help Chandu win a career defining competition. In Kerala when the love pairs decide to have their own space things don’t happen as they wanted which complicates things for the two. What happens in the end? Do they succumb to the pressures of the society or do they prove everyone wrong is in this “Oh My Friend”.

As mentioned earlier, the major spoiler in this film is the pace at which it moves along. In fact in the entire first half most of the scenes between Chandu and Siri brings a déjà vu effect from earlier movies. The defining moment though is the climax (which could have been more stronger) that makes the difference between the run of the mill love stories and this “Oh My Friend”.

In terms of acting, Siddharth and Shruthi Hassan are definitely the star performers where they act with conviction. While Navdeep in some scenes show his mettle as an actor, Hansika Motwani has been wasted and she too hasn’t made much use of the time and space given to her. In fact, in the scene where she conveys her displeasure to Chandu about him not giving attention to her there is hardly an impact made compared to the intensity of the discussion.

The scenes that lead to the climax could have been well constructed but most of them are hollow and lacks common sense. Two can be close pals but not at the cost of their ambitions or putting their love life at stake.

Music by Rahul Raj helps in few places to maintain the tempo of the film. Editing by Marthand K Venkatesh should have been more tight.

Debutant director Venu Sriram has taken a beaten path in terms of storyline and has tried to do something different in the screenplay has fallen short of expectations badly. The film has a running time of 130 minutes and to be honest it could have been more crisper than it turned out to be. The comedy track by Ali is distasteful and it further brings the pace of the film down.